Book Description

'Disenchantment' has been a consistent trope in sociology since Weber's appropriation of the term nearly a century ago. In this work I argue that, in contrast to the standard modernization story, organizations have long been subject to countervailing forces other than that that of rationalization. This has been especially true in schools, institutions that exist at the intersection of the logics of bureaucracy, democracy and expressive youth cultures. In this dissertation I identify a uniquely contemporary organizational response to these tensions, one I associate with the notion of 're-enchantment.' I use this term to refer to reforms that identify emotional and intellectual alienation as the primary institutional problems to be overcome and find a solution in the reinvigoration of organizational practices with imagination, creativity, and collaboration. The result is a genre of reform that accepts the logic of standardized and rationalized outcomes but attempts to transform the process of achieving these goals by 're-enchanting' organizational experience with a sense of connectedness and creativity. In this dissertation I discuss small school reform generally, and a particular instance of it at Mill Town high specifically, as examples of organizational re-enchantment. More than just introducing new practices or structures, small school reform entails an effort to reshape the tactic and practical modes of coordination, what I call ways of being. These are social conventions that allow actors to coordinate with each other and their environment in a way that is grounded in a shared practical understanding of the proper ordering of people and things. In contrast to standard account that locate the barrier to change in the minds of organizational actors, utilizing a mixed-methods approach I show that much of the failure of the reform at Mill Town was not the result of beliefs, attitudes or values of teachers, but rather concerned the complexity of changing culturally disposed, and intersubjectively sustained, modes of coordination in the organization.